Thursday, July 14, 2005

NWP-roperty

When Bill and I first decided to move in together, just after we encountered ye age old debate of whether 20 and 23 is too young to be in that kind of relationship, we encountered ye age old debate of, North or South of the river? Way back when Shakespeare was hanging out in London, South of the river used to be very dubious indeed. Where all those suspicious theatre goers and prostitutes lived. You wouldn't have caught my 16th Century self hanging around in those parts, oh no. Anyway, South London today has some very nice areas I am sure, but I lived for one horrible month in Waterloo and that put me off the whole of SE1 - and everywhere else in South London is completely alien to me. I see the South from my university on the Strand and occasionally might go to a theatre or a gallery on the South Bank, or this one nice fish and chip shop on Waterloo Road, but that is it. I have also settled nicely into my NW3 lifestyle, and want to continue to live somewhere semi-close to Hampstead Heath and Primrose Hill because I do love those places - even if they are saturated with people who have 1) far too much money for their own good and 2) an insatiable desire to show off.

So, because I am like an old woman of the Moseley family, and very stuck in my ways, it seemed an obvious choice to keep an eye out for an NW3 bargain, though we don't hold much hope out for that. We also decided it would be wise to venture into the Wider World of Tufnell Park and Archway (Parliament Hill could perhaps suffice). Unfortunately for us, after looking around to see what the market is like, everything is too expensive or too small or too much located on the 39th floor of a tower block, regardless of whether it was in N19 or NW3. So we had to consider accepting his sister's request to move in with us - or I had to force Bill to consider that, because they don't exactly get on too well in their current flat but I gave the case for more space = less tension and arguments. Consider it he did, to the point that we looked at a very nice 2 bedroomed flat on Parkhill Road, which is a VERY NICE road in between both of our flats now. He considered it to the point that it would be OK to move in with his sister and compromise our loved-up desires for a nicer place. So it's something that we must give continued thought to, but at the same time I just want to do this living together thing, regardless of whether we have to eat our food sitting on the toilet because there is nowhere else to sit. (And it's not even THAT dire, I should count my blessings.) The reason we are having trouble is because the money he gets from his parents to help pay the rent stops here - combined with the fact that I have been living in a flat with a livingroom/bedroom, that is very cheap in the first place because my friend's aunty is also our landlady.

The more details I look at, the more I want to have sorted this all out months ago and the more I rue the day they decided that giving just 1 month notice on ending a tenancy was a good idea. It was all good and fun when we used to browse the Evening Standard and other rental websites, whilst daydreaming about sneaking a pet cat/dog/small horse into the flat, but since it became something we actually had to sort out, particularly with 300 miles between myself and my boyfriend and any potential new flats, it became so much less fun. Why we can't just live somewhere with piped music and a sauna is beyond me.